Collecting and trading cards depicting the likenesses of and statistics concerning athletes is a very popular hobby. What started years ago as a fad of collecting baseball player cards distributed as premiums in bubble gum packages has grown into a multi-million dollar business with attractively printed cards being sold on their own merit. And, such cards today bear the likenesses of a variety of athletes from baseball players, to basketball players, to football players, to race car drivers and others.
In an effort to make its cards more unique, the Upper Deck Company, assignee of this patent application, several years ago adopted the practice of applying small hot stamped diffraction grating patterns to the face of its cards. These diffraction grating patterns are created by micro-embossing the pattern into the surface of a thin plastic coating using procedures described in Understanding Holography by Michael Wenyon, Arco Publishing, Inc., New York, Copyright 1978-1985 by Michael Wenyon (see pages 76-78).
Some attempts have been made to enhance the attractiveness of trading cards by combining two holographic images. Unfortunately, the images thus produced tend to be dim and dull.